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If she closed her eyes, she could feel the silence of the museum, hear the echoes from the distant corridor If she concentrated, she could conjure Gabriel’s voice, lecturing on the four loves of eros, phileo, storge, and agape
All of a sudden, she opened her eyes, her gaze drawn to the i a thousand tiure disquieted her There was so about his face that seeely familiar
“They’ve made an addition to this room since your last visit” Gabriel’s voice interrupted herher to the right so she could see a large fra on the wall opposite The Birth of Venus
She covered her ged her until she was standing in front of a photograph of herself She was in profile, her eyes closed and her long hair held up by a pair of
The picture was one that Gabriel had taken back in Toronto, when she’d first agreed to pose for hiraph and read the following,
«Deh, bella donna, che a’ raggi d’alion esser testilia di trarreti avanti»,
diss’io a lei, «verso questa rivera,
tanto ch’io possa intender che tu canti
Tu mi fai rimembrar dove e qual era
Proserpina nel tempo che perdette
la madre lei, ed ella primavera»
—DANTE, PURGATORIO 28045-051
“Ah, beauteous lady, who in rays of love
Dost warm thyself, if I may trust to looks,
Which the heart’s witnesses are wont to be,
May the desire come unto thee to draw
Near to this river’s bank,” I said to her,
“So
Thou makest me remember where and what
Proserpina that moment hen lost
Her ”
“Those are the words Dante speaks when he sees Beatrice for the first tiatory” Gabriel touched her face, and his eyesintensity
“It was the sa separated fro in the street,you’d see ainst his chest as Julia’s eyes filled with tears “Don’t cry, irl You’re my Beatrice and my sticky little leaf and my beautiful wife I’m sorry I’ve been such a bastard I wanted to show you how important you are to azed up at hi his lips to her forehead
“You’re my Persephone; the maiden to my monster”
“No more talk of monsters” She brushed his tuxedo with her hand, worried that she’d transferred tears and makeup to the wool